The student elections were fast approaching. The esteemed university wanted to ensure smooth operations through the whole process. With thousands of students in campus and multiple phases to the elections, there simply was no room for error. The university needed a reliable platform that could facilitate the elections swiftly, efficiently and without any hitches. CollPoll delivered at every phase.

Background

Manipal University, Dubai, part of the esteemed Manipal Academy of Higher Education, has a large and diverse student body. With over 2,000 students in campus hailing from 26 countries, the university turned to CollPoll to optimise over 100 campus services and processes. From mess operations to a gamut of academic functions such as assignment management, CollPoll offers end-to-end solutions for an enhanced campus experience.

Therefore, it was no surprise that the university turned to CollPoll for a customised solution to conduct its student elections. The election process itself, which had to conducted over phases, could have been complex but digital solutions were at hand to make it seamless.

The Challenge:

Under the larger umbrella of the university, there are specific Schools offering multiple programmes. For instance, one of the schools within Manipal University Dubai, is the School of Engineering & Information Technology and it offers programmes such as BTech Civil Engineering, BTech Chemical Engineering and more. Each School has its own independent identity but also falls under the larger administration of the university.

Manipal first wanted to conduct student elections for office-bearer positions for each specific School. These positions ranged from Student President to Treasurer and more. Students who were voted into office within their own Schools, then had stand for elections for the same position but at the university level. For example: any student who was voted in as the Treasurer for the School of Engineering & Information Technology, would then contest for the same position at the larger university level. The elections had to thus be conducted in two phases.

The Solution:

Voting took place entirely through CollPoll. In the first phase, students could only vote for candidates from their own specific Schools. Team CollPoll tailored the process in such a way that a student from the School of Design & Architecture could only view details of those contesting for positions within that School. Through the CollPoll app, students could vote with just a click of a button.

Once the first phase concluded, Team CollPoll rolled out the second leg of the operations. Students that had won positions at the School-level, now could be elected by the larger student-body for the same positions at the university-level. Team CollPoll once again stepped up and created a process wherein all students part of the university could see details of the School-level winners and vote accordingly for the university positions.

The CollPoll Outcomes

·         The elections were conducted smoothly without any errors within a day.

·         Increased voter turn-out was ensured with around 1,400 students casting their votes during the elections.

·         By going paperless, admin and faculty did not have to tabulate the results. The results were calculated and declared in real-time by CollPoll.